Culturally-significant texts – Across genres, across the ages

The Tortoise and the Hare, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, and the old saying “sour grapes” – these are only a few of the many many everyday references passed down for some 2500 years since they were first told to children in Greece by a local storyteller and slave.

Though some of the stories are undoubtedly much older, with origins in India, Sumer, and Egypt, it is Aesop who is remembered for his gathering of existing stories and composition of new ones to provide a moral education to children. Indeed, he was praised for his particular adherence to moral truth, held by many above the greatest of Greece’s poets and philosophers for his ability to capture the essence of wisdom without the need to dress it up in epic verse or lengthy philosophical ramblings.

You know the stories, many of them. But go back, read them all, and read them aloud. It’s worth it.